Tiger’s niece makes the breakthrough

CHEYENNE WOODS, the niece of the great man, won her first professional event at the weekend in the Ladies European Tour opener, the Volvik RACV Ladies Masters inAustralia.

This was significant enough for the Golf Channel in the US to switch programming to cover the last two hours of the event as the 23-yearold closed in on securing her modest 37,500 euro winners’ cheque.

Uncle “Tig” wouldn’t even get out of bed for that.

It was a decent field — Yani Tseng, Caroline Hedwall, Jessica Korda and Charley Hull all present — and there’s no doubting Cheyenne has ability. She qualified for the US Women’s Open under her own steam in 2012 and also came through the LET Q School.

There will now surely be a move to co-opt her into LPGA events — even though she failed to come through their Q School twice — as the circuit is in pretty desperate need of home grown talent to challenge the Koreans.

Even some of Tiger’s reflected glory would help, especially if Cheyenne continues to develop as a player in the manner she has done over the last season on the LET.

What I find quite interesting is that Cheyenne is the first tour winner to emerge from Tiger’s oft-trumpeted foundation.

In fact, she’s the only player nurtured by the foundation so far to have done much of anything in top-class golf.

It’s curious that despite the foundation’s extremely well-publicised activities, the only prodigy Tiger seems to have is his own niece.

Picture: Getty Images. Cheyenne Woods.